ja2v113hamfandomcom-20200214-history
Leadership Requirements for Training Militia
In vanilla JA2 and 1.13, Militia Training is affected by the trainer's Leadership skill, but to a very limited extent: The better you are at Leadership, the faster you will train militia. HAM 3 makes the whole affair more interesting, by adding further importance and effect to both the Leadership Skill and the TEACHING trait. History Training Militia in Jagged Alliance 2 is a relatively simple affair. You assign a soldier to Militia Training duty, pay the required amount of money, and compress time until a unit has been fully trained. Depending on the trainer's Leadership skill, this can take a few hours or a few days. It also depends on local town loyalty. You can have two trainers working in the same sector to increase training speed further. Every training session produces the same number of troops, dictated by the INI Setting "MAX_TRAINING_SQUAD_SIZE". By default this value is 10, so no matter who does the training, the result will always be 10 new militia. Training in a city begins with trainers creating new "Green" militia. Once the city is full of these, the trainers will begin creating "Regular" (light-blue) militia to replace them, also at a rate of 10 new militia per session. Once the city is full of Regular militia, Elite militia (dark-blue) can be trained to replace them, unless that feature is disabled. Elite militia are also trained at a rate of 10 per session, no matter who does the training. If the city has become completely full of the best kind of Militia you can produce, the next training session will create Mobile Militia outside the city. A different INI value is used to determine how many are created each session, which is called "DIV_OF_ORIGINAL_MILITIA", making (by default) a group of 5 Mobile Militia each session. By default, all of these new Mobile Militia will be Elites (dark-blue). When choosing a character for militia training, we often pick the character with the best leadership skill. The only reason for this is because high leadership = faster training. The leadership skill has no effect on the results of the training session at all - any character is capable of training the same number of militia, and the same quality of militia, only slower or faster depending on actual skill. The TEACHING trait helps speed things up a bit, and Rebel characters (Ira, Miguel, Etc.) have slightly higher speed as well. Again, speed is the only thing that is actually affected by all of this. HAM 3 Militia Training Revamp - Overview Starting with HAM 3, several new features dramatically increase the importance of a high Leadership skill, by increasing its effect on Militia Training to a considerable extent. #Characters with low leadership may not be able to train Militia (or Mobile Militia) at all! #Characters with low leadership will train a smaller number of Militia than dictated by the INI settings, on top of the original slow training speed #Characters with low leadership will train lower quality troops In addition, the TEACHING trait helps increase the character's "effective" leadership skill for these purposes. Expert TEACHING is naturally even better at this. The result is that the player will need to hire or train characters in Leadership, to compensate for the above handicaps. Characters with high Leadership skill become very important for the Strategic game, much more important than they had previously been. Characters with the TEACHING trait are even more useful. Minimum Leadership Requirement HAM 3.4 allows you to set an ABSOLUTE MINIMUM Leadership requirement for Militia training. No matter what number you set this to, a merc would require at LEAST that much leadership to train militia at all! Some characters may thus become incapable of training militia, and will have to practice or study Leadership until they reach the minimum requirement. If your character lacks the required amount, the "ASSIGNMENT" menu will show the Militia Training option as greyed-out or yellowed-out. That character will be completely incapable of starting a training session. This is true even if another, more accomplished character is already training militia in the same sector. Separate Leadership Requirements for Standing and Mobile Militia As of HAM 3.4 there are two separate settings to control the Minimum Leadership required for Garrison and Mobile Militia training. A character may have enough skill to teach Militia to defend a sector, but teaching them to patrol the wilderness can be made more difficult and thus require more leadership. Alternately, you can set both requirements to the same value, or even make Mobile Militia easier to train than Garrisons. The decision is yours, of course. Variable Quantity of Trained Militia With HAM 3, having the bare minimum required leadership skill to initiate training is usually not enough. You want your trainer's Leadership to be high enough to train a significant amount of troops per training session. The maximum number of Garrison Troops trained per session is dictated by the JA2 1.13 INI setting called "MAX_TRAINING_SQUAD_SIZE", which is normally set to 10. In HAM 3, only highly-skilled trainers will be able to train this many troops every session. Characters with less-than-optimal Leadership skill will train less troops, proportionally to their skill. The maximum number of Mobile Troops trained per session is dictated by the JA2 1.13 INI setting called "DIV_OF_ORIGINAL_MILITIA". It's a tricky value, because it also depends on the maximum number of militia that can exist in a single sector at the same time. Normally, this maximum is 20, and the DIV value is 4, so each training session will create 5 Militia (20/4 = 5). In HAM 3, only highly-skilled trainers will be able to train this many troops every session. Characters with less-than-optimal Leadership skill will train less troops, proportionally to their skill. How much Leadership is "optimal"? Two INI settings in HAM 3 allow controlling the amount of Leadership required to train a "maximum-sized" group of militia per session, one setting for Garrisons, and one setting for Mobile Militia. If the character has at least this much Leadership skill, he or she will train the maximum number of troops every time. If he has less than this much Leadership skill, fewer troops are trained. A character just barely meeting the minimum required skill to train militia at all may train as few as one militia member! The exact number of troops trained is calculated based on the difference between the character's Leadership skill, the "optimal" Leadership value, and the "minimum" required leadership skill to initiate training. Please note that the number of troops trained is based on the Leadership skill of the BEST leader in the sector. If you have more than one trainer working in the same sector, training will be faster, but only the BEST leader gets to determine how many troops are created per session. Training Price Stays the Same One important point to consider is that regardless of how many Militia you'll train by the end of the session, you will always pay the same price for training. There are many reasons for this, mainly the fact that one character can initiate the training (and pay the money) while another, more skilled character can pick it up from there. This could create an exploit where the player has a low-leadership character pay a few dollars to train one militiaman, and then another high-leadership character completes the training and trains a full squad. This adds extra emphasis on finding good trainers who won't waste your money. The "TEACHING" Trait and its effect In addition to everything that was explained above, the TEACHING trait can now be used to augment the character's Leadership skill, for purposes of determining whether a character can train militia at all, and for determining the amount of Militia trained. For every level of the "TEACHING" trait, the character will have a certain bonus to his Leadership skill. This bonus comes in the form of a percentage, applied to the "real" leadership score. By default, the bonus is set to 150%. This means that a character's who possesses the TEACHING trait will have his leadership increased by 50% for all the above checks! This calculation is done once for each "TEACHING" skill level, so if the same character is an expert teacher, he/she will get a whopping 75% increase instead of just 50%! Example Let's say we set the minimum Leadership requirement at 60. Characters with less than 60 Leadership will not be able to train militia AT ALL. Let's also say that we've set the TEACHING trait to double our effective leadership score (200%). This means that any character with 30 Leadership who also has the TEACHING trait can train militia despite his low leadership score - he simply has a knack for it! The math is simple: 30 * 200% = 60! ''' If a character has TWO levels of the TEACHING trait, he can start training militia when his leadership is a measly 15! Why? Because we double our leadership once per every level of "TEACHING": '''15 * 200% = 30, and then 30 * 200% = 60! Naturally, using the INI settings explained below, you can play with these values whichever way you like. Variable Quality of Trained Militia :Main Article: Mobile Militia Diversity As of HAM 3.5, a Trainer's Leadership score can also influence the QUALITY of the troops he produces. This only works with Mobile Militia training. If used, this overrides another HAM feature (Externalized Militia Diversity). *If the character is close to the minimum required leadership, he will train only Green Mobile Militia (rookies) *As the character increases in ability, he will train more and more Regulars instead of Greens. *Finally, as he approaches the "Optimal" Leadership (see above), he'll begin training Elites. *With "Optimal" Leadership or more, the character trains entire squads of Elite militia. In future versions of HAM, this feature will also be available for Town Garrison training. Increasing the Basic Militia Training Squad Sizes Due to the introduction of variable militia quantity and quality, you might find that Militia training is now a much slower and laborious task, which often requires dedicating a specific merc for the job. Unless you've got a couple of mercs with very high leadership, the act of training enough militia to control an entire city can take a dozen days (or more), which slows down your rate of advance. In addition, HAM 3.5 Alpha changes the rules somewhat by limiting the number of locations where Militia can be trained at all. This makes speedy training far more difficult, and unless the number of Militia trained per session is raised significantly, you may find it very difficult to hold on to any liberated city. One way to deal with this situation is to hire specialized mercs with high leadership scores and/or the TEACHING trait. Characters like Ira, who are largely unsuitable for actual combat, can fill this role rather well. Ira may have a Leadership score of 14, but with her Expert TEACHING her effective score is actually 31. Once she reaches a base Leadership score of 45, her effective score is already 100! (This is assuming you leave the TEACHING trait bonus at the default 150%) The other method is to raise the default squad sizes to compensate for the fact that most mercs won't be able to train that many troops. Increasing the Garrison Training Squad Size The maximum size of the Town Garrison groups trained each session is set by a JA2 INI setting called "MAX_TRAINING_SQUAD_SIZE". This is a flat value, so whatever number you set here will be the absolute maximum. By default this value is 10. If you are using both Variable Quantity and HAM 3.5's Facility-Based Militia Training, it is recommended that you raise this value to at least 15. Increasing the Mobile Training Squad Size Unfortunately, Mobile Training Squad Size depends on two distinct values to determine the maximum number of Militia trained per session. Both these INI settings belong to the original JA2 1.13. The first value is MAX_MILITIA_PER_SECTOR, which determines the maximum number of Militia that can coexist simultaneously in the same sector. Normally, this is set to 20. The second value is DIV_OF_ORIGINAL_MILITIA. This is a divisor value that determines newly-created squad size based on the first value. It is set to 4 by default. The maximum size of a new group is calculated thusly: Maximum Size of New Mobile Group = MAX_MILITIA_PER_SECTOR / DIV_OF_ORIGINAL_MILITIA Changing the MAX_MILITIA value is not recommended, unless you want to increase the number of Militia that can occupy a sector. This has several strategic ramifications which won't be described here in detail. Your best bet is to decrease the DIV_OF_ORIGINAL_MILITIA value. The smaller this value, the more Mobile Militia can be created in a new group. If you are using both Variable Quantity and HAM 3.5's Facility-Based Militia Training, it is recommended that you reduce this value to 2. Please note: :Your mileage may vary. Do not change the settings unless you understand the implications they will have on your game. INI Settings: HAM has several INI settings for this feature. They are hereby split into three categories - Settings affecting Garrison Training, Settings affecting Mobile Training, and Settings affecting All Militia Training. 1. GARRISON TRAINING INI SETTINGS MINIMUM_LEADERSHIP_TO_TRAIN_MILITIA LEADERSHIP_AFFECTS_MILITIA_QUANTITY REQ_LEADERSHIP_FOR_MAX_MILITIA 2. MOBILE TRAINING INI SETTINGS MINIMUM_LEADERSHIP_TO_TRAIN_MOBILE_MILITIA LEADERSHIP_AFFECTS_MOBILE_MILITIA_QUANTITY REQ_LEADERSHIP_FOR_MAX_MOBILE_MILITIA 3. GENERAL TRAINING INI SETTINGS TEACHER_TRAIT_EFFECT_ON_LEADERSHIP See Also Diverse Mobile Militia Militia Training Facilities Category:Features Category:HAM Militia